The Higher Moral Ground

One by one, the hopes of Sonia Gandhi supporters for her premiership crumbled. One by one, the chances ofCongress survival for the full term in office grew. The question remains whether she was forced to abandon herdesire of becoming Prime Minister by the threats from the likes of Sushma Swaraj or Uma Bharati, or had shemade up her mind a long time ago?

In the wake of 1998 parliamentary elections, when BJP returned as the single largest party, but fell muchshort of the magic figure of  272, speculations were ripe that Congress would forge an anti-communalalternative to keep BJP from power. But Sonia Gandhi told me that she had no intention of power-grab byleading the party into a rag-tag alliance in a hurry. She vowed to play the role of a "responsible andmature opposition". In that sense, and perhaps that sense alone, Vajpayeeji has a little of Sonia Gandhi inhim.

Accusations notwithstanding, Sonia Gandhi has never shown any interest or intent for power. She neverwanted Rajiv Gandhi to enter politics and was not happy when Rajiv was propelled into prime ministership. Shehas been the First Lady who is extremely well groomed, cultured, polite, gracious and graceful--in short sheis truly an ideal Indian woman.

Nehru-Gandhi family is often dubbed as the Kennedys of India. Politics and power run in their blood. Thereis nothing wrong with that. And if the Indian masses love them for what they are, there is nothing wrong withthat either. After all, love and respect do not come by force. We have seen plenty of that lately. It is thefree will of a free country.

However, if some of the pressure on Sonia Gandhi following Narasimha Rao’s departure from the politicalscene included a sense of keeping an opportunity alive for her children to continue the legacy of Gandhifamily, it is totally understandable. As a mother, she had an obligation. Whether it is politics, acting,business, or any other profession, one’s flesh and blood following one in the same career is not uncommon inIndia and elsewhere. But unless the flesh and blood followers are capable of running the show, they could beput out of business very quickly. We have seen that happening too. It is the survival of the fittest.

It is entirely possible, however, that Sonia may also have seen an obligation to resurrect CongressParty--a party that was nourished and raised by her family members, but was rapidly going down the abyss ofirrelevancy. She was pleaded to take up the reins and there is no question that she has done a fine job onresurrection.

Time will tell if through its opposition to Sonia Gandhi becoming Prime Minister, NDA has not dug itselfinto a larger hole. More people now believe that the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin was only aconvenient ploy in the hands of NDA, a Jersey cow. If they were serious about their expressed fears ofendangering the Indian security by a foreign born citizen, they had more than five years to pass a resolutionto plug this hole.

Hindsight is the best sight. "India-shining" and "feel-good" failed to deliver the dividends mainlybecause when one looks at the performance of BJP over their five years in power, one recognizes that theyachieved nothing. They kept no promises they made to us in their pursuit of power. Whether it was constructingRam Mandir, or scrapping Muslim Personal Law (MPL), or abolishing Article 370, or eliminating Hajsubsidies--they have nothing to show for success. Of course, our growth picked up steam during the last fiveyears and India-Pakistan came closer together. But while the credit for the first goes to Narasimha Raogovernment which initiated deregulation and liberalization in a bid to open up our economy, the latter wasdictated mostly by USA and the geopolitical situation following 9/11.It has little to do with BJP, which haslargely reveled in demonizing Pakistan, though Vajpayeeji must be given some credit here. But let’s face it,he was at best doing damage-control of his party’s doings.

We all remember when Dr. Manmohan Singh started the process of liberatlization, BJP cried foul thatCongress was selling the country short. It campaigned for Swadeshi and vowed that it would reversederegulation and disinvestments if brought to power. But the only thing they reversed after coming to powerwas their own stand on liberalization.

One of the oft-repeated excuses given by Sangh supporters for the failure to deliver on BJP campaignpromises is that their hands were tied to act because NDA would not have gone with that agenda. And yet, NDAhad no problem going with their agenda of propagating hate, deepening communal polarization, playing with theconstitution, plaguing our education system--none of which were even on the list of Common Minimum Program.What did NDA do in the aftermath of Gujarat massacre of 2002, which was planned and executed by the Modi gang?

The legacy and the lesson NDA leaves is that there is no need for bringing morality in politics. It doesnot matter what you do as long as you do it decisively and with resolve. It can help if from time to time yourepeat like president Bush "I take full responsibility". As Fareed Zakaria says, taking responsibility inpresent times means nothing. Public has short memory.

Congress seems to have learnt a few of these lessons already. My recommendation to Rahul, Priyanka, or anyone else is just don’t be afraid to face the music if someday you want to lead the band.

Najid Hussain is President, Ahsan Jafri Foundation, a charitable US tax-exempt foundation under501(c)(3) established in the wake of killing of Ahsan Jafri, the former M.P. from Gujarat, during Gujaratmassacre of 2002.